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South Pacific Independent News Network · 09-03-2020, 03:11 PM

Year 18 | 03 September 2020

RANDOM MUSINGS
THE GREATEST MOTIVATION: DEFINING THE DEFENDER GENERATION OF THE SOUTH PACIFIC
SANDAOGUO | Guest Contributor

Introduction
The South Pacific took a winding path to defenderism, overcoming the challenges of the Independence ideology advanced for so long as an alternative to defending. The benefit of the scenic route is that we haven't entered this brave new world without first debating ad nauseam and debunking all the reasons not to choose defending over the alternatives of raiding, isolationism, disarmament, "neutrality," or Independence. However, the thing about brave new worlds is that they're still new, which requires defining how we want our world to be. We've walked down the portico and through the front doors, and now having crossed the threshold it's time to define what this defender generation will mean.

Those who brought us to this point bear some responsibility to provide a framework for the future. I have been asked many times to write about what defending "means for TSP." Until now, I have shared my opinions casually, but left much of the conceptualizing up to a new generation. I want to now develop an overarching guide to how to conceptualize defenderism in TSP, discussing our motivations, the importance of lore-building, and some concrete policy steps we should take right now. This will not be a short and sweet article, but rather an in-depth essay meant to provide guidance for current and future leaders and those in the community who have a deeper interest and curiosity for the game we play. So grab your coffee or tea, get a couple biscuits, and settle in.

Setting Things Straight
Before we get to the rest of the essay, I want to address a common problem that has cropped up during discussions on "what defending means for TSP." There's a contingent of people who recoil the words defenderism and its cousin defenderdom, and the phrase "defender TSP." I don't want to dismiss the normative importance of semantics, but a lot of air is wasted on debating these points. So I want to attempt to set the region straight on the terminology and semantics associated with being a defender region.

A good chunk of this debate is an implicit discomfort with being a defender region in the first place. Those who recoil when someone refers to TSP as a "defender region" instead of "a region that happens to defend" are really opposed to being defender, rather than genuinely thinking there's a significant difference in meaning. Advocating for conceptualizing TSP as a "a region that defends" is, at the end of the day, advocating for TSP not being a defender region. That's because the mere act of blocking or reversing a raid is not being defender. "A region that defends" is not necessarily guided by any deeply-held principles or ethics, and can just as easy be "a region that raids." So this strain of semantic squabbling should simply be nipped in the bud. There's no satisfying it, and indeed the entire goal is to convince TSP to not be defender.

Moving on from that, when someone expresses reticence about applying the words "defenderism" and "defenderdom" to TSP, they are usually concerned with signing away sovereignty to some shadowy council of Cigarette Smoking Men dictating defender policy to the region. This stems from a misunderstanding of the terminology. So let's define both terms and then discuss a bit how they fit into the context of TSP.

Defenderism. Noun. The ever-evolving set of ethical, moral, and normative ideas that provide an underlying reason for defending.

Defenderdom. Noun. The collection of regions, organizations, and individuals, sometimes formally allied or just loosely associated, who subscribe to various tenets of defenderism.

TSP‌ declared to the game that it was a defender region, but as yet we have not embraced defenderism. To do so, we need to agree on an underlying reason or motivation for defending, and that reason should involve some kind of ethical consideration. Defenderism is ever-evolving, meaning there is no central authority that determines what counts and what doesn't. By debating why we defend, we can contribute to the canon of defenderism. It's not a unilateral thing, though. And that's where defenderdom comes into play.

By declaring ourselves defender, TSP signaled its intent to possibly join defenderdom. We could instead go it alone, but that is a route with many dangers and a much lower chance of success. There is no formal process for "joining" defenderdom, but adhering to the tenets of defenderism that we decide are right for TSP‌ is a big part of being a member of the broader defender community. Just as we don't look favorably on associating ourselves with autocratic regions, defenderdom may not look favorably on an ostensibly defender region that, well, doesn't behave like a defender region. All foreign policy comes with exogenous constraints.

So, to summarize, to complete our transition to a defender region, TSP‌ needs to adopt tenets of defenderism (which may mean developing our own) that signal to other defender regions that we are brothers and sisters in arms. No smoke-filled rooms. No cloaked figures deciding our fate in hidden Discord servers. Hopefully we're no longer made uncomfortable by these terms.

A Note on Roleplaying
The rest of this essay will be written from an in-universe perspective. It's important to understand defending as a type of roleplaying. The concepts we will develop below are not discussing raiders as the humans behind the nations, but the counterparts in the roleplaying game of NationStates Gameplay. Failure to understand this game as fundamentally a roleplaying game has led to a lot of personal toxicity in the past.

It's sometimes difficult to separate the in-universe actions and rivalries of raiders and defenders, because the consequences of raids are entirely felt by those who aren't roleplaying with us. There is no easy answer to that problem, but nonetheless the whole game breaks down if we do not recognize it for what it is: a roleplaying game.

Motivations
There has been a lot written over the years about why people should defend instead of raid. I won't seek to reinvent the wheel, but there are some concepts you know. The first is what natives are and how the idea of nativeness is central to defending. The second is self-determination, or alternatively known as sovereignty. These two ideas provide a basis for what's known as "defender moralism," though that name has gone in and out of fashion over the last decade.

Approaches to Defining "Native"

To be a defender means to protect natives against raiders who try to destroy their regions. That's the most boiled-down definition of defending I‌ can think of that doesn't render the word itself meaningless. But who are natives?‌ That question has been the source of many debates within the defender community and between defenders and raiders.

The seminal writing on the topic is arguably The Polysemes of Nativeness, written by Unibot in 2012. It's a thorough accounting of the two major conceptions of what natives are. I‌ won't go into as much detail – I encourage you to read the essay, if you want that – but will summarize the two different ways people have thought about natives. (By the way, a "polyseme" ‌is just a word that has multiple meanings.)

The first is the positive definition: a native is a nation that resides in their region long-term, identifies that region as their home, and displays a commitment to the region through activity.

The second is the negative definition:‌ a native is a nation that resides in their region without a hidden or ulterior motive of furthering foreign interests.

We call these "positive"‌ and "negative"‌ definitions because of where the onus is placed to be considered a native. In the first, a nation must actively seek to meet the requirements of being a native. In the second, the only thing a native needs to meet the requirement is to not be furthering foreign interests. One takes positive action, while the other requires no (negative)‌ action.

Over the years, the negative conception of native prevailed over the positive. Raiders and other anti-defender groups tend to promote the positive conception of native because it's harder to meet, to the extent they buy into the idea of a "native" in the first place. For defenders who believe their purpose is to protect as many natives as possible, the maximal negative conception is naturally preferable.

Indeed, whenever TSP‌ has taken a stance against the invasion or destruction of an innocent region, the baseline understanding of what makes a region "innocent"‌ are that they aren't engaging in vile activities. In other words, all regions are innocent by default, but may stop being innocent if they do certain things (like espouse neo-Nazi ideas). The negative conception of nativeness fits into the general ethics TSP already believes in-- all nations in a region are natives, unless they are there to further a foreign interest. Our own laws surrounding "good faith"‌ membership bear a striking resemblance, as well.

Self-Determination

So we understand now what being a native means. The question then becomes, "Why are natives special?‌ Why shouldn't they be raided?" These sound like complex questions but are remarkably simple to answer. All regions have a general right to self-determination, also known as sovereignty. Regions have the right to organize themselves as they wish, control who is and isn't a member, and decide how they interact with the rest of the regions in the game. Each region is its own community and nobody has the right to invade or destroy these communities.

Natives are special because it is they who exercise the right of self-determination within their regional communities. This is a concept we understand very well within TSP, having gone the extra step of recognizing the right to local self-determination for the on-site RMB when regional government is organized off-site. It's also an idea that goes hand-in-hand with our belief in democracy.

Regional sovereignty goes beyond merely protecting regions against raids and invasion. This concept of sovereignty and self-determination is what underpins the norms against forum destruction, spam attacks, Discord destruction, etc. Communities have a right to exist. Raiders do not have the right to deny that existence. It's this idea that is the basis for why we defend other regions and not simply our own.

Moralism, or New Moralism

That brings us to the terminology much-maligned by the current generation of Gameplay influencers: defender moralism. The phrase itself is rather innocuous, referencing a form of defending that adheres to moral rules derived from the ideas of nativeness and self-determination. It became maligned years ago because of its association with defenders who were sometimes overzealous and perhaps, according to critics, crossed the line between in- and out-universe behavior.

However, the idea itself never went away and plenty of defender regions and groups still identify with it. (The major exception here was The Grey Wardens, whose founders were among those spearheading the demonization of moralism.) The divide between moral and amoral defending is one of degrees, rather total separation. Even The Grey Wardens employ moralist language, just dressed in *Dragon Age* aesthetics. I‌ would argue there really isn't a defender amoralism, just a disagreement on limits of moralist thinking. Namely, when is it acceptable for a defender group to raid, if ever? The Grey Wardens do not rule out raiding raiders, if ever possible. There's also a debate on when, if ever, defenders should raid Nazi, fascist, or other bigoted groups.

The extremes of defender moralism would state that defenders should never raid. It's anathema to our ethics. More moderate moralists would say that it's a waste of resources to raid, when there are so many raids that we need to defend against. Then there's the aforementioned position staked out by The Grey Wardens. As an aside, wherever one falls in this debate, it's important to point that there is no form of being defender that states raiding is okay in general. Defender Game-Created Regions often deal with people saying, "We shouldn't limit ourselves to just defending. What's the problem with doing some non-destructive raids?"‌ The problem is that it's intended to encourage more and more raids, until raiding becomes generally accepted and the region is no longer defender. Every update spent raiding is an update the military is not engaged in defending. TSP‌ must always be on the look-out for this insidious form of anti-defenderism. This argument is often framed in terms of independence, not tying the region down, wanting to do things a "unique" way because we're a special region, and many other forms that cover up the ultimate demand of defending less and raiding more.

Excusing that detour, let's return to the tenets of moralism. This is a topic that was recently explored in The Southern Journal in the articles "In Defense of a New Defender Moralism"‌ by Seraph and "The Role of Compassion in a New Defender Moralism" by an anonymous writer. There is an interesting contention between the two articles on the tolerance of non-destructive raiding, which I‌ hope is continued in future articles. But I‌ want to point your attention to the core shared belief of compassion. Seraph and our anonymous writer, though they may disagree on details, do agree that their greatest motivation for believing defender moralism is right is a belief that TSP‌ should be compassionate in how we see and treat other regional communities.

This idea of compassion is one I've subscribed to for a long time outside of the game. While I'm known in NationStates as Glen-Rhodes, my online handle throughout the rest of the internet is usually Hierocles-- as evident in my Discord handle hierocles#3041. Hierocles was a Greek Stoic philosopher during the 2nd century AD. Greek Stoics developed a philosophy known as cosmopolitanism (not to be confused with the Gameplay term, which borrows the theme but not, I‌ would argue, the deeper meaning)‌, or "world citizenship." Little is known about Hierocles' life, but he left behind a great way to understand cosmopolitanism.

Think of a series of concentric circles. You are at the very center and each circle around you represents a degree of separation from you and the rest world. The first circle is your direct family, the second, your extended family. The circle around those is your neighborhood, then your local community, your nation or state, and finally the entire world. Your task is to draw all the people in those outside circles further and further in, until you care for other communities, other nations, and all people of the world the same way you would care for your family and self. (One is a "world citizen" because they care about all people's interests and needs, not because they hold citizenship in many places across the world.) This is fundamentally an art of compassion.

Unfortunately, the term cosmopolitanism is already widely used in NationStates, but with a different meaning. Because the core idea of the moralism being developed in TSP is compassion, I‌ believe the "New Defender Moralism" proffered in the articles by Seraph and Anonymous is more aptly named compassionate defenderism, though I'd be just as happy if "new moralism" is the moniker we choose. This term of art avoids evoking rigidity and zealotry that moralism is associated with (fairly or not), while also being up front and clear about what the morals and ethics of defending entail-- that is, being compassionate about other regional communities.

This is the greatest motivation for being defender in TSP, one that I hope defines our current and future generations. We defend natives and their right to self-determination because we have compassion for them as innocent communities just trying to exist and flourish in NationStates.

Rebuilding Defender Lore
As TSP endeavors to recreate ourselves as a thriving defender region, a lot of our energy will be focused on the operational aspects of being defender. That is, recruiting for the military, training new defender soldiers, solidifying existing defender alliances, and building new ones altogether. This is all incredibly important work. After all, what is the point of calling ourselves defender if we are not actually doing the work of defending?

I‌ want to implore the community to reserve some energy for an equally important task, though. That is the task of lore-building. Defending is a form of roleplaying, and all roleplaying games have lore. In NationStates, the lore of Gameplay is what you're reading right now. It's the development of the ideas, theories, ethics, and motivations providing the why of what we're doing. It's an area of the game that has been neglected for a long time, much to the detriment of the game's overall quality.

Without robust lore, the purpose of the game becomes to collect stats and to increase social capital. The game ceases to be a roleplaying game, but rather a social game with all the negative consequences that come with social dynamics. This is an unhealthy way of playing the game that breeds stagnation, substitutes social popularity for meaningful contribution, and erodes regional identity. Luckily, because of our own experiences with the Gameplay Discord community, TSP‌ has avoided assimilating to this form of gameplay.

As we seek to grow our own defender power and influence, however, we can ensure our game stays a roleplaying game at its core, not a social game. The way we do that is by fostering a culture of lore-building. If you're reading this essay, take the ideas I‌ offer here and expand on or refute them. Offer alternatives, bring new ideas to the table, or write about how compassionate defenderism can be further implemented in our community and beyond.

After reading this essay, I‌ encourage everybody to peruse the archives of the Rejected Realms' Library of Spurned Knowledge. It contains many works written over years, spanning various subjects of NationState. A subset of this library is the archived remnants of the Naivetry Reference Library, which was maintained by the United‌‌ Defenders League before it disbanded. Perhaps TSP‌ could start a new library where these have left off.

Onward
With a solid foundation built, where do we go from here? I don't presume this essay will be the only one of the subject of TSP's defender motivations, ethics, and moral compassion. I‌ really hope not. But now having given my thoughts on why TSP‌ is defender, I‌ want to provide some ideas on how we should be defender.

This won't be as lengthy as the rest of the essay, because operations are both not my strongest suit and something that ultimately is better done through collaborative efforts. Nevertheless, there are four main avenues I‌ think the Assembly and the Cabinet should explore. Note, I do believe the Assembly has just as much a role to play here as the Cabinet!

Define the Enemy

TSP‌ has shied away from thinking about enemies in the past. This is not a good practice for a defender region, because recruitment of new defenders relies entirely upon having others to fight against. Where we have allies, we must also have enemies. Of course, those enemies are generally raiders. But "raiders" alone is too vague.

Our recruitment materials, propaganda, and foreign policy should all feature heavily a named enemy to fight against. Mobilization is the most effective means of defending. People want to know not only who they're fighting for – the natives – but also who they are fighting against. Having a named enemy, or enemies even, also provides a built-in activity incentive. We must be as active as our enemies. Every movement of them is the impetus for a counter-movement by us.

Naming our enemies also signals to the rest of the game that we have specific targets and goals. It would hopefully light a fire under an otherwise sclerotic group of players. Additionally, knowing who our enemies are allows us to develop a foreign policy that works to organize against them. Again, "raiders"‌ in general is a difficult point to rally against.

Defender Bloc Alliance

A lot of attention has been given to this idea already, so I'll try to be succinct here. Defenderdom has been unorganized for too long. A new pan-defender alliance, of both regions and non-regional organizations, would foster greater communication and coordination within defenderdom. This alliance would hopefully go beyond operational benefits, and spur new lore-building, new cross-cultural ties, and increased visibility for defenders in the game.

We can't rest on our laurels with existing non-formalized channels of cooperation, like the Libcord Discord server, if we want to achieve greatness for both TSP and all of defederdom. While operationally magnificent, Libcord is an "inside baseball" aspect of defending. Because it's not formalized, it's difficult to make a centerpiece of recruitment efforts. When players join NationStates and are ripe for recruitment, Libcord is not where they're going to go. It's vital to have a formal alliance that can be used both as a strategic and tactical cooperative and as a recruitment vehicle. Regions and organizations provide meaningful community, where defenders can flourish not only in military gameplay but in cultural and political gameplay as well. Defenderdom must be centered on discrete regional and organizational communities, rather than a Discord server.

While efforts to go underway immediately to form a pan-defender alliance, there are other stepping stones towards it that would serve defenderdom well. A multilateral alliance is a difficult thing to negotiate, especially all at once. Summits and conventions to hash out the contours and details of an alliance could prove fruitful in not only making the final product better, but in kickstarting the redevelopment of lore-building and norm-building that the game has lacked for many years. Summits provide an open forum for all levels of players to contribute ideas, from rank-and-file to leadership to those who have never before played the military game.

Recruitment

Both of the aforementioned ideas tie a lot into recruitment. Being able to propagandize against named enemies and having a highly visible and active pan-defender alliance would be a boon to recruitment efforts not just for TSP but for defenderdom as a whole. The SPSF should consult with the leaders of former defender organizations for ideas on how to effectively recruit new members. Developing an action-plan, rather than vague wish-lists for the future, is absolutely imperative to defender success.

Revitalizing the SPSF

There's currently a discussion happening about reimagining TSP's regional theme. The same should be done for the South Pacific Special Forces. Because the military was always in the middle of such a fraught tug o' war before TSP‌ declared itself defender, the SPSF‌ was never really given a theme. Indeed, its name was designed to be inoffensive and not evoke either raiding or defending. It's a "special force" that engages in tactical operations. As a defender region, our military is a central institution and deserves to be treated as such.

We are in a new era of TSP, so we should bring the SPSF‌ into this new era as well, freshly made over into something more themed for a defender region. This doesn't require a name change or title revamps, though that's always possible. But rather the symbology, imagery, and words (ie. guides and reports) of the military should advance compassionate defenderism. There is a lot of room for creativity here. So while we repaint the region as a whole, let's make sure we don't forget about our military.

Conclusion

I‌ hope this brave new world is starting to feel a bit more like home. Having played NationStates for over twelve years, I‌ have had the privilege of playing with so many great defenders, debating with the mightiest adversaries, and participating in groundbreaking and truly innovative forms of defending like the Unite‌d Defenders League. I‌ have believed so much in the seven and a half years I've called myself a proud member of TSP‌ that we are destined for greatness.

The principles, motivations, and ideas I have offered in this essay are meant to pave that road to greatness. It's a collaborative effort and a never-ending one at that. But by seeking to always answer the question of why we defend, we will move onward and upward. I hope I have provided some clarity to what being defender means for TSP. And I hope that this will provide inspiration for others, particularly those in newer generations, to respond with their own ideas and proposals. Let's develop a thriving culture of defender lore-building and intellectual curiosity, and never stop asking why and how.

Thank you, and good luck.

Sandaoguo, also known as Glen Rhodes, is a former Minister of Foreign Affairs and is a member of the Council on Regional Security.

The South Pacific Independent News Network (SPINN) is an independent news organisation established in 2003 with the goal of providing good, insightful and timely commentary on regional events for the citizens of the South Pacific. Opinions expressed in this publication do not necessarily reflect the views of the Editorial Board. Content is published with the name of the author unless they explicitly request to remain anonymous. The SPINN is not associated with the Government of the South Pacific.